Hyper-Local Social Media

When it comes to social media marketing, one size does not often fit all. When coming up with your strategy, it’s important to narrow down target users. Who’s your audience? Where’s your audience? If you’re a small local business, you most likely know the answer to those important questions. But how do you reach them online? Build up your social media presence with these helpful pointers.

Optimize your pages on review sites

A study by University of California, Berkeley professors Michael Anderson and Jeremy Magruder found that a half-star improvement on a restaurant’s Yelp ratings contributed to a 19% sales increase. This shows just how influential social media reviews can be. Don’t be left out! Make sure your pages on review sites (e.g. Foursquare, Yelp, Google Plus) have as much information as possible, and that this information is correct. Think: what’s important to your customers? Keep information (such as hours of operation, address and phone number) current, and reinforce your location for SEO value.

Another key factor in maintaining your page is claiming it as a manager and verifying that you’re the business owner. This way, you can respond to customers by addressing any complaints or thanking them for a nice recommendation. As a manager, you may also be able to upload photos and video depending on the site. A more advanced step is to use website analytics to determine which of your review sites get the most traffic and make sure you’re active on them.

Go mobile (Your customers are!)

With more than 1 billion smartphones in the world, mobile access is more important than ever. So what can you do to reach your target audience, a fraction of that 1 billion? An obvious choice is to make an app, but if that’s not an option, at least create a mobile version of your website. Navigating the web version of a site on a phone screen can be frustrating and deterring.

If you can’t create your own app, make use of social channels that already have apps. Sites like Foursquare and Facebook already have location-based features like check-ins. Set up special offers (redeemable upon checking in) as an incentive for people to physically come in to your business. This can encourage visitors to come back and is a nice way to meet the person behind his or her online profile.

Target Local Users

Like we said before, one size doesn’t fit all when you’re building a social media presence. If you’re a local business, you need to target local people. It’s nice to have some followers from Ohio bump up your numbers, but realistically they’re not as relevant to your sales if your restaurant is in San Francisco. A good way to focus on users in a specific location is by inputting target zip codes or city names. When you’re setting up a social media advertisement, make sure you note locations that are most important to you. This is also helpful when selecting Twitter users to follow (and hope that they follow you back!).

These few tips will help you build your social media presence around a target geographical community. To get acquainted with location-based social media channels, take a look at Foursquare and get started!